I've always used Photoshop for work, but I'm trying to branch out and do photography for my own. Bit pricey, but I'd like to be able to do some of this stuff at home. As Photoshop is by far more expensive than Lightroom, I was wondering a few things, since I've never used Lightroom.

Pretty much wondering if I can do the following:
Crop photos, and crop to adjust horizon
Adjust levels
Dodge/Burn
Possibly spot heal to fix any dirt on the lens
Change photo to black and white

levels --> i don't think so, there is a tone curve, and hsl adjustments

dodge, burn ---> no

spot ---> yes, much easier than photoshop (for me)

b/w ----> of course, but not advanced modes...

i find lightroom fairly enough for all my processing, but take on photoshop when i need something more serious (b&w processing with more control, and different methods of processing)..

but what i find best abut lightroom is that you can tag, flag, rate, batch process, and many things with bunch of photos, rather than single photo at a time, also there is ability to sync processing witch saves a lot of time if you are having bunch of similar photos..

lightroom won't give you ability to make magazine cover people photos, but has clear advantages over photoshop, as well that photoshop has some of its own, so they best come in pair, but for starting i would say to go with LR and than when you need some serious processing take on photoshop..

I've just started using LR and I'm really starting to appreciate photo management. Especially with the keywords and also having it automatically backing up to my two hardrives (incase 1 fails). I've also just started shooting in raw and even on my slow laptop it handles them brilliantly.

Ok, so I'm getting conflicting confirmations with burning and dodging for Lightroom. Some people are telling me you can do anything you can in a darkroom, and others say you can't dodge and burn, which is one of the basic priciples of dark rooms. Can someone tell me if you can or not?

The images in LR remain always in the same place. All you do is automatically saved in a file that accompanies your original. So the original remains untouched no matter what you do. The files are in the directories you import int, and the neat thing is that the directories in LR are the directories on your HD , changing, moving, renaming files and directories are made actually in Windows with the LR interface.